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Airport delays improving now TSA agents are being paid - INDEPENDENT
The hellish long lines at major U.S. airports began to show signs of improvement Monday after weeks of travel chaos caused the government shutdown and security workers going without paychecks.
Most Transportation Security Administration officers started to receive pay for the first time in more than a month after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week as a “temporary fix” amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, which has now exceeded 40 days.
However, experts warned that the ordeal is not done, given that more than 500 agents have quit their jobs.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this TSA fiasco isn’t over just yet; it’s actually about to get worse,” former TSA officer Caleb Harmon-Marshall wrote on his travel Substack, Gate Access. “Travelers should remain cautious of long wait times at airports across the country for the next couple of weeks, as TSA officers are still financially strained due to extremely low paychecks.”
Aaron Barker, an Atlanta TSA officer and president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 554, told CNN that he believed more agents would quit in the coming weeks due to multiple missed paychecks.
“I do think that there’s going to be a mass exodus of officers,” Barker told the network. “Officers have gone into debt. Credit has been shot. Officers have been evicted. Cars have been repossessed.”
Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the union’s TSA Council 100, said back pay “is not going to address systemic issues” and it would be difficult for agents to recover from the shutdown, which is the longest in the agency’s nearly 25-year history.




